Better job market for media grads

8/19/13 11:31 AM EDT

The job market for students of journalism and mass communication is improving, a new survey finds.

The University of Georgia survey found journalism students specifically working in news and editorial experienced a 17 point jump in employment since 2010, with 67 percent of recent grads saying they found full-time work within eight months of graduation. In 2010, only 50 percent reported they had found full-time work.

Around 65 percent of JMC grads in general report holding a full-time job roughly six to eight months after graduation, versus 58 percent in 2010.

Professor Lee Becker, who has been directing the survey for more than 25 years, said that although this year's study shows the market is improving for journalism and mass communication students, it may just be a reflection of the overall job market.

"The primary finding that the market continues a modest improvement and salaries went up a little bit, this year they even improved beyond inflation," Becker told POLITICO. "The bad news is that the market still has a lot of ways to go."

And although around a quarter of JMC students said they regret their decision to study journalism or mass communications, Becker said this number has been steady for decades and that there is not comparative data to other fields of study.

"That's a big mistake to focus on that, if you look at the chart there's very little movement on it, it's not an area where anything has dramatically changed over a long period time," Becker said. "It seems to be pretty much regardless of the market about the quarter of respondents say they wish they had done something different."

Women had the easiest time securing a job in journalism and mass communications, whereas minorities had it the toughest, the study also found.

The survey was conducted among recent graduates from 82 universities and colleges across the country who graduated in 2012 with a sampling error of 2.3 percentage points.